Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is considered the gold standard for nucleic acid amplification and detection because the specificity and sensitivity of PCR are considerably higher than that of analogous Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (“ELISA”) tests. However, PCR systems are costly and require very clean samples. Point-Of-Care (POC) PCR systems generally are not fully disposable, are not appropriate for unskilled use, require substantial power and/or contain complicated microfluidic processing and readout. Thus, PCR traditionally has been limited to high resource, centralized laboratory settings.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for point-of-care nucleic acid amplification and detection that overcome the drawbacks of previously known methods and apparatus.